AIP\u2019s annual list<\/a> of bachelor\u2019s-only departments averaging 10 or more physics diplomas per year over a three-year period.<\/p>\n\u201cRight now, the trend has been up. It follows all of STEM education,\u201d Baker, who has been at Furman since 1994, said when asked if more kids are majoring in physics. \u201cPeople are more aware that STEM degrees are just a degree you want to have. That\u2019s what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n
STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and emphasizing study in those fields has been a nationwide education focus for some time. The AIP recognition is an attempt to encourage departments, but with or without it Furman physics has never been more popular.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re doing very well. One count says we\u2019re going to graduate 20 in 2017,\u201d Baker said. \u201cThat\u2019s even more glorious, and that\u2019s plenty for the size of the faculty we\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed. Undergraduate research is a big focus for the six professors, but the quality inevitably suffers with too many students competing for attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you do independent research with them, you can only do one or two per professor or they\u2019re falling over each other\u2019s feet in the darn lab. So at two apiece, that\u2019s 12,\u201d Baker said. \u201cThree apiece, we\u2019re running 18, so that\u2019s clearly a max right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Furman has been emphasizing science for some time now, but as a liberal arts school it still fights bias in those circles against the quality of its programs. Earning mention by the AIP helps counter the misconception that its graduates can\u2019t compete.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou hear that. For example, an employer, the very first thing they think is, well, we\u2019d rather recruit from Georgia Tech or Clemson, so you have to turn your gears and say, hey, our kids can do the same thing,\u201d Baker said. \u201cLet me compare course by course\u00a0. . .\u00a0Physics degrees open doors to people like Georgia Tech for engineering, medical schools, and, believe it or not, patent lawyers. A lot of our kids go into engineering for some strange reason rather than pure physics.\u201d<\/p>\n
Learn\u00a0more about\u00a0the Furman Physics Department<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You don\u2019t need to understand the dry friction equation to figure out why you don\u2019t know many physics majors: There just aren\u2019t very many to know. According to American Institute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":4133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-physics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4132"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33277,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4132\/revisions\/33277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}